Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
And, this is why I don't use Dropbox's "click to upload" option, for our clients. I'm always terrified that one of my clients will get god-knows-what and infect us. As it is now, the files come via server/FTP and I can check them for viruses, malware, etc. before I put them on our internal dropboxes. but Dropbox's new functionality--creating a dropbox for someone, and sending them the link to upload, seems like asking for trouble, for those of us using the synched service.
Given the way that we use Dropboxes internally, it would be BAD, boy. BAD.
(shudders).
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And we get back to practicing Safe Hex.
I stopped
running A/V on my old netbook. (It runs XP Home, and with a massive 1.5 GB RAM, isn't a candidate for anything later. I
did set it up to dual boot XP and Ubuntu Linux.)
I had been running Symantec Corporate, courtesy of a site license from then employer. Unlike Symantec's consumer oriented solution, Norton, the corporate version installed with no issues, ran like a top, and used little resources. But the version I was running reached End-of-Life, and would not get further virus signature updates. And I no longer worked for that employer, so a new version would be on my dime.
The only thing Symantec had ever "caught" had been false positives. I asked whether I
needed A/V, and concluded I didn't.
Viruses and malware are infections. Infections have vectors by which the enter the host. Ward the vector and block the infection.
The principal vector for viruses is email. I use Gmail. My mail actually resides on Google's servers. I read and reply to it in my browser. Gmail also implements viewers for most attachments, so I can open and view them in my browser. Potentially dangerous stuff never actually gets to my machine.
And I download from known-good sources that scan on their end, and most software I get is open source anyway.
I stopped running A/V and haven't missed it. I warded the vector.
Malware targets browsers. I run Firefox. By design, FF
doesn't support Windows Active-X controls, which were major sources of problems for folks using IE, because bad guys learned how to by-pass the normal controls on running such things in the browser. And I have defenses in Firefox.
I have the freeware Malware Bytes scanner here. I run it occasionally, and it never finds anything. I warded the vector.
Under Win10, I use Windows built-in program, Windows Defender, but that's mostly to keep Windows happy and not complain I'm not protected.
An annoyance with Gmail back when was the Gmail wouldn't
let you send EXEs as attachments, even wrapped in a Zip file. They would open the attachment on their end to see what files were in it and block any archives that included executables. I needed to do that occasionally, and had a Yahoo account specifically for he purpose. Now I just put stuff like that I want to provide to someone on my Google Drive, share it with them, and provide a link in email to get it.
In your place, I'd likely do what you've done. The alternative would be setting up a machine carefully
not connected to my network such things would download to, set up to open such things on receipt and scan the hell out of them with A/V and anti-malware software, and use sneaker-net (like a USB thumb drive) to transfer stuff I was confident wasn't infected to the machine where it would be worked on.
Given the stories you tell about your clients, "Safe Hex" would be Terra Incognita to them, and I wouldn't trust anything they uploaded.
______
Dennis